January 30, 2008

Last night Greg and Kyla came over for dinner and to watch/discuss the Florida returns. We also celebrated their recent engagement - yeah! We had veggie pot pie and spinach salad for dinner. It was a cozy, relaxed evening and we all had a really nice time.

Tonight I'm getting my haircut and then I'm going to try and watch the rest of Lost Season 3 (I think I have 6 more shows!) on ABC online for FREE, so that I'm all caught up for the season 4 premiere tomorrow night. I'm not sure I can pull this off.

January 29, 2008

Last night's dinner was fantastic! I cooked 3 recipes from my new cookbook, Veganomicon (I LOVE THIS COOKBOOK) and they were all very tasty. We loved the "easy greens" (I used kale) with garlic, ginger, rice wine and soy sauce...great new flavors. The chickpea quinoa pilaf was very hearty and delicious. Oh and quinoa, which besides being fun to say, is also considered a "complete food" because it contains all essential amino acids...super! Lastly, the chili cornmeal-crusted tofu. These were very good...a hint of lime with the chili heat...nice. Both Grant and I commented that the texture and flavoring remind us of fish sticks, so maybe these would be good with some fries, salad and beer. We opened a new vegan wine that we hadn't tried before, Frey red wine. We must have liked it as the bottle is empty this morning.

For dessert I tried a new recipe from The Joy of Vegan Baking - the chocolate, chocolate chip peppermint cookies. These were also very good. They were rich and chocolaty - yummy.

January 28, 2008

I got a visit from little Eli yesterday. He has grown so much and is smiling all the time. It's amazing how much he has changed.

Yesterday was the first gathering of my crafty friends on an afternoon. We've been getting together when time allows during the week, but with busy work and baby schedules, we decided to try an afternoon meeting and Kate named it "Crafternoon." I think it was quite successful...very cozy and relaxed.

Amanda, Sarah and Eli came over a little before crafternoon started and we visited for a while, which was nice because we hadn't seen them in a couple weeks. Then we were joined by Amanda and Marcella and then Kate and her co-worker Amanda (lots of Amandas.) We spent the afternoon catching up, knitting, sewing and scrap-booking. It was really nice time and I think we'll probably stick afternoons, especially because we love the name so much.

January 18, 2008

Grant, Grant's mom and I just left the Savannah National Wildlife Refuge. It's a favorite place to visit when we're in town. Today we saw many beautiful birds and 4 alligators sunning themselves. One interesting thing I noticed when I was looking at one of the alligators with binoculars, less than a foot away from the alligator, just hanging out next to it was this good sized brown rabbit. Yes a rabbit and it was alive. We thought we might witness some national geographic but the rabbit did hop away, at least for now...thank goodness.

Grant and I are riding in the snack car because our car is bloody hot. There's a bunch of us in here taking a break from the steamy, snore-filled car. I'm pulling an all-nighter. Gotta love the train...

January 17, 2008

Grant and I are headed to savannah on the overnight train. We just played Ludo (grant got it for christmas) and it's a lot like sorry. I won, but had an unfair advantage be cause Grant didn't really play games growing up. I even let him cheat and was still far behind. More on our travels to come...

January 14, 2008

So last week Mum, Jim and I went to Boston to meet with the Dr. Sugarbaker, a well-known mesothelioma surgeon and specialist at the Brigham and Women's International Mesothelioma Program. It was confirmed that my mother is not a candidate for the radical surgery Dr. Sugarbaker is know for, which is ok because she didn't really want it anyway. We learned that she has a very rare form of mesothelioma and that was good news because the this type of meso generally progresses slower than most. We also learned that her cancer has not progressed in the last 3 months and that too was great to hear. Way to go mum!